For several semesters -like six, or seven maybe - I've been chasing the elusive Dean's List semester. In my college, that means taking at least 14 credits and getting straight A's. I've come SO close on several occasions, but I always end up with that one class that comes in just under the A mark. (Of course, Ryan got one last winter without even trying... or caring... or even knowing what it is... It's still on our fridge, reminding me daily of my bad luck and lack of scholastic competence.)
This was going to be THE semester - since it's my last semester where I'll have at least 14 credits. However, I have that one professor whose tests are very applied and his lectures are very philosophical. I have that one class where the professor wants us to read his mind and who grades on an impossibly picky scale. I have that other class where there are outside required events that my schedule won't let me attend, and so I'm crossing my fingers that the teacher remembers that we talked about it and doesn't change their mind at the last second and dock my grade. I have that other one class where I keep thinking I'm doing great and then the test scores come in and I'm average, or worse.
All in all, it looks like my five-year-long goal of making the Dean's List might die with my April graduation, fly into the air with all the other caps, and disappear, never to be reached. Despite my best efforts, it might be a semester of B's and maybe even C's, and that elusive letter congratulating me on academic success and scholastic prowess probably won't ever appear on my doorstep.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Quitter
I'm not normally a quitter. I usually enjoy challenges and love the sense of accomplishment from overcoming something hard.
But when someone informs me the skill I most pride myself on in my job needs work because I sent an email that sounded rude, and then gives me remedial lessons in sending courteous emails, I feel like giving up.
When I go to class and find out I might fail, just like that, for missing a homework assignment I didn't feel comfortable doing, I feel like quitting.
When I rearrange the budget spreadsheet for the hundredth time and it still shows the same numbers, I want to quit.
When I discover an error in a spreadsheet that I worked and worked and worked on, I just want to give up.
When I open my planner and the millions of things I have to somehow accomplish swim in front of my eyes, and my head starts pounding and all I can think about is how I can't possibly get all of this done along with all the other things that I have to do, and then I arrive at home to more to-do lists and more things I'm failing in, and I look at that budget sheet and that April graduation date on the calendar and wonder for the millionth time what in the world I am going to do to make it all work out right... I just want to give up then. I want to crawl under the down comforter on our bed and hide between our shiny sheets and cover my head with a pillow and pretend the whole entire world doesn't exist and it's just me in my little dark cocoon and nobody can tell me what to do, when to do it, what time to be there, or that I'm doing a bad job at it, because inevitably something falls through the cracks and I can never please everybody, all at once, in everything I have to do, and if I can't please everybody, then I can't please myself, and maybe if I hide under the covers it will all go away and take care of itself and I can come out in a couple hundred years and everyone will have forgotten what a terrible failure I was at life in October 2012, and maybe they won't mind that I didn't know what to do after graduation, and they won't care that I sent an email that offended the secretaries, and they won't laugh at me for messing up spreadsheets all the time, and they'll smile and tell me that I'm doing a good job at life and maybe then I'll actually believe them because right now I really just don't.
And that is why today I want so bad to be a quitter.
But when someone informs me the skill I most pride myself on in my job needs work because I sent an email that sounded rude, and then gives me remedial lessons in sending courteous emails, I feel like giving up.
When I go to class and find out I might fail, just like that, for missing a homework assignment I didn't feel comfortable doing, I feel like quitting.
When I rearrange the budget spreadsheet for the hundredth time and it still shows the same numbers, I want to quit.
When I discover an error in a spreadsheet that I worked and worked and worked on, I just want to give up.
When I open my planner and the millions of things I have to somehow accomplish swim in front of my eyes, and my head starts pounding and all I can think about is how I can't possibly get all of this done along with all the other things that I have to do, and then I arrive at home to more to-do lists and more things I'm failing in, and I look at that budget sheet and that April graduation date on the calendar and wonder for the millionth time what in the world I am going to do to make it all work out right... I just want to give up then. I want to crawl under the down comforter on our bed and hide between our shiny sheets and cover my head with a pillow and pretend the whole entire world doesn't exist and it's just me in my little dark cocoon and nobody can tell me what to do, when to do it, what time to be there, or that I'm doing a bad job at it, because inevitably something falls through the cracks and I can never please everybody, all at once, in everything I have to do, and if I can't please everybody, then I can't please myself, and maybe if I hide under the covers it will all go away and take care of itself and I can come out in a couple hundred years and everyone will have forgotten what a terrible failure I was at life in October 2012, and maybe they won't mind that I didn't know what to do after graduation, and they won't care that I sent an email that offended the secretaries, and they won't laugh at me for messing up spreadsheets all the time, and they'll smile and tell me that I'm doing a good job at life and maybe then I'll actually believe them because right now I really just don't.
And that is why today I want so bad to be a quitter.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Fully Committed
Commitment: the act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself (thank you, dictionary.com)
"There are so many people who promise so much, yet when the time comes for them to really do something and stop talking about it, they falter and fall away...So for all of us, the time to commit, to keep our covenants, to act, it now!"
This quote is from my awesome missionary younger brother-in-law. We've been friends for a while, and even before I married into the family he was an example to me - mostly because he is always so cheerful! Now, as he's coming to the end of his mission, he wrote home to say that one of the families he's been teaching for quite some time won't be baptized before he leaves. I'm sure that's an incredible disappointment to him - but instead of complaining about it, he turned the topic to commitment and continued to inspire me with his ability to glean a message from a disappointing situation.
Idea 1: Commitment. It's an interesting word we usually hear collocated with marriage. But once someone overcomes their "fear of commitment" and ties the knot, it seems the phrase disappears from the register. Apparently, in our society, the idea of commitment only extends as far as the altar and is then discarded and tossed away in favor of "be yourself" and "make sure they make you happy" and other trite, self-centered ideas. Isn't commitment something bigger than that? Isn't commitment about love, really?
Idea 2: Commitment in definition silently implies a sacrifice of some sort. If commitment is a pledge, it is a pledge to do or not do something. And that something will take away from other somethings, and therefore commitment involves doing one thing instead of another thing. Example. Commitment to daily personal scripture study involves a time sacrifice. Time is spent studying the scriptures in lieu of spending it somewhere else. That's about as basic as it gets.
Idea 3: Commitment is action. "There are so many people who promise so much, yet when the time comes for them to really do something and stop talking about it, they falter and fall away." One cannot be committed and do nothing - unless they are committed to doing whatever they want and nothing else. Then they can do nothing. But if one is committed to anything or anyone else, action is going to be required.
So.
Commitment = love + sacrifice + action.
The true measure of our commitment is the spirit with which we attempt to keep our commitments. Halfhearted "attempts" aren't good enough. Now is the time to be fully committed to the things we believe and the people we love. Trying isn't good enough, and neither is making excuses. Perfection doesn't come all in a day - but commitment can. The time to act is now.
Viva la Vida.
And thanks, John, for being the messenger for something I needed to hear.
"There are so many people who promise so much, yet when the time comes for them to really do something and stop talking about it, they falter and fall away...So for all of us, the time to commit, to keep our covenants, to act, it now!"
This quote is from my awesome missionary younger brother-in-law. We've been friends for a while, and even before I married into the family he was an example to me - mostly because he is always so cheerful! Now, as he's coming to the end of his mission, he wrote home to say that one of the families he's been teaching for quite some time won't be baptized before he leaves. I'm sure that's an incredible disappointment to him - but instead of complaining about it, he turned the topic to commitment and continued to inspire me with his ability to glean a message from a disappointing situation.
Idea 1: Commitment. It's an interesting word we usually hear collocated with marriage. But once someone overcomes their "fear of commitment" and ties the knot, it seems the phrase disappears from the register. Apparently, in our society, the idea of commitment only extends as far as the altar and is then discarded and tossed away in favor of "be yourself" and "make sure they make you happy" and other trite, self-centered ideas. Isn't commitment something bigger than that? Isn't commitment about love, really?
Idea 2: Commitment in definition silently implies a sacrifice of some sort. If commitment is a pledge, it is a pledge to do or not do something. And that something will take away from other somethings, and therefore commitment involves doing one thing instead of another thing. Example. Commitment to daily personal scripture study involves a time sacrifice. Time is spent studying the scriptures in lieu of spending it somewhere else. That's about as basic as it gets.
Idea 3: Commitment is action. "There are so many people who promise so much, yet when the time comes for them to really do something and stop talking about it, they falter and fall away." One cannot be committed and do nothing - unless they are committed to doing whatever they want and nothing else. Then they can do nothing. But if one is committed to anything or anyone else, action is going to be required.
So.
Commitment = love + sacrifice + action.
The true measure of our commitment is the spirit with which we attempt to keep our commitments. Halfhearted "attempts" aren't good enough. Now is the time to be fully committed to the things we believe and the people we love. Trying isn't good enough, and neither is making excuses. Perfection doesn't come all in a day - but commitment can. The time to act is now.
Viva la Vida.
And thanks, John, for being the messenger for something I needed to hear.
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